2019 SouthWest: Texas Big Sky

Continuing our eastern path, we drove from Santa Fe to Amarillo,  down to the I-40 along Hwy 285. The drive along 285 was a steady descent through scrubby ranch land, punctuated by rich looking red soil and rocks. The stretch of I-40 to Amarillo was a good drive, nice and smooth, with surprisingly little traffic, I think perhaps we lucked out a bit. Just outside Amarillo we took the opportunity to stop at Cadillac Ranch.

This is an art installation created in 1974, and consists of 10 vintage Cadillacs embedded into the ground at 45 degree angles, up to their windshields. Visitors to the installation soon started to write on the cars, and this then turned into spray painting.

Apparently years back the cars would be occasionally sandblasted to remove the layers of paint, but that had to stop as the rust and weather were seriously deteriorating the car bodies. It seems now that the paint might well be what is holding everything together. And there is a lot of paint, in some areas, the cars are hardly recognizable, the paint creating its own shapes and blobs.

We originally thought that a Sharpie was what you were supposed to use, but walking to the site, from the smell, we realized that paint spray cans was what everyone was using. Seeing us without a spray can in hand, a young boy handed us a few cans that he had been using, and it did not take long to add our initials to one of the Caddies...when in Rome as they say.   With approx. a million visitors a year, doing the same thing, we’re guessing that our initials will probably be covered within the week...

we left our mark...if only for a short while

We read a bit about Amarillo, and decided to stay a few nights to check out the city. We ended up at a KOA on the east side of town, and it is the only option if you want to be within reasonable driving distance to downtown. KOA’s are like the McDonalds of the RV world...you know what you are getting, and for the most part, the consistency of quality is pretty good. This KOA was what they call a “Journey” location, meaning that it is probably best suited for stop overs along the way. By dinner time, the place was packed, and by breakfast, it was empty again.

a couple of friendly horses nearby

big sky most everywhere

This KOA was bordered on one side by the regional airport, and on the other, a huge railway freight yard. Not very conducive to a quiet nights sleep. The first night, the sound of the trains was fine, as they certainly can be for some. The second night however, the hum of the trains was much louder and as an added bonus, the airport was guest to an Air Force AWACS plane doing continuous touch and go landings. Clearly a training exercise, and seeing this unique looking plane come in on approach was very cool. Although it went on for hours, and full military power is pretty loud, in the big scheme of things, those individuals were training hard to hone their skills, while we were just sitting on our asses in a camper watching. Kind helps keep it in perspective.

Barley owns everything

The next day we walked the old section of Route 66 downtown, a stretch of blocks that is home to some interesting shops, a few cafes and bakeries, and perhaps just a few too many antique shops and biker style bars. We did have a nice conversation with a guy running a Route 66 memorabilia shop, and he is quite the entrepreneur. He organizes Route 66 tours that start in Chicago and work their way southwest. He is a wealth of knowledge on Route 66, which he shares along the tour route, and has a small stable of vintage cars that participants can also rent and drive to get the full old time feel. His other sideline is that he is allowed to carve paint off of the Cadillacs at Cadillac Ranch, and he uses slices of the colourful paint layers to make jewelry and art pieces. Pretty creative guy.

We were also inexplicably drawn to the RV Museum. Jack Sizemore RV has been in business a very long time, and over the years, they have collected and restored a lot of vintage trailers. They have created a museum on the site of their dealership, and it is really well put together. We wandered through for the longest time, fascinated by the collection, and how things have evolved over time. It is well worth the visit.

quite the road trip Wally had

a beautiful restoration

very retro looking...and the body lines were amazing

austere to say the least

so similar to current day iterations

the key to making a good camping trip...GREAT!

Overall though, we found Amarillo is very run-down, especially the east side, and has a sketchy vibe. It is certainly a place where many of its residents are having a hard time, just scraping by is a term that comes to mind. Although it shows that the city has put efforts into fixing up the downtown, we noticed that the sidewalks were surprisingly bare. The west side of town has the box stores, and has attracted some new housing, but the vast majority of the city has an uncomfortable feel to it, and we felt A bit uneasy walking around some parts of it.  This feeling was reinforced when we were buying groceries, and the checkout lady asked us if we were travelling. I responded yes, and she then told us to be careful. I asked her if there was something in particular she was referring to, and she said yes, there are a lot of crazies out there. I told her that when we are travelling, our spidey senses are always on. She said to keep it that way, and from the look on her face, she was dead serious.  It was nice of her to be concerned and share that with us.

Would we do a stop over in Amarillo, sure we would.  Would we stay more than one night, probably not, now that we have seen most of the city.